


somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond

by kasiopeia



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Gen, Sansa centric journey, everyone is broken, the warnings are only in the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-01
Updated: 2013-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-04 00:10:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/704242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kasiopeia/pseuds/kasiopeia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Why would you want to come with me?" she asks finally.</p>
<p>"I made a promise to your lady mother, and a Lannister pays his debts." </p>
<p>He looks at her in a way she is not comfortable with, like a drowning man would look at the shore. And she knows that a knight's promises are like the morning mist: beautiful to look at, but gone once the sun rises. But she can't deny him his own way to freedom even if she doesn't understand it. </p>
<p>They leave the next day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the poem by E.E. Cummings

Sansa owns a mask of porcelain, she owns a mask of ivory, she owns a mask of steel. She dons them all these days, just to stay alive. She learned to play the game with words, not with steel, but that does not make her less dangerous. She learned from the mockingbird, and even if Petyr is dead now, he follows her wherever she goes. His smooth voice fills her head and her mind, blending with the lessons from her youth. _Courtesy is a lady's armour. Never let your mask fall._

She smiles and curtsies and behaves like she knows they expect. The new queen is no friend to the Starks, but Sansa had stood before the mother of Dragons, head bowed in false submission and listened to her words of pardon for a crime she didn't commit. She is no longer the girl she once was, and she knows that even if the queen says that Sansa doesn't share the offences of her father and her brother, she is still not safe. _Do not place your trust lightly. Always be on guard for the next attack_ Petyr's voice say in her head as she bends her knees and swears loyalty to a Queen she barely know. 

Tyrion is back as well. She watches her husband and waits for what he intends to do. _Sometimes the best plan is to listen, watch and make sure your plans belong to others._ She is done being a pawn, some piece to be traded away, but Tyrion carries favour with the new Queen and Sansa is playing a long game, a game she intends to win. She no longer thinks in small steps and immediate needs, and she might still need Tyrion's good will. He was kind to her before, he might be so again. 

She has been a pawn and she is never letting herself be one again. If they kick her she will not stay down, but rise even stronger with a cold fury suitable of her northern blood.

 

 

 

He doesn't seek her out until a few days later, although she knows he has seen her. He makes her a sarcastic bow, and looks up at her with a glint in his eyes. 

"Will you not welcome your husband home?" 

She smiles back at him _confidence is a shield against suspicion_ "Of course my lord." she says and holds her hand out to him. He takes it and places a kiss to her knuckles. 

"Would you care to accompany me to my chambers?" he says politely.

"Yes my Lord." her heart beats madly in her chest, but she doesn't let it show. She wonders if he's changed like she have, if this time he will press her for the duties of the marriage bed. She thinks she knows the hearts of men, but she is not sure she knows this one. She can feel his eyes on her as they walk, her stride shortened to match his. Once she would have speed up just to spite him, but that is not her any more.

His sitting room is spacious, as the Hand of the Queen he is entitled to it even in a castle that bear the markings of war. But it surprises her all the same, she is so used to her own small cell and she still has a picture of him in their old rooms. He offers her a seat near the fire, pours them wine and sits down opposite her. He is still looking at her, but she does not want to be the one that break the silence. _don't talk unless you know what to say_.

"You are different from the wife I left behind." He gives her a half smile, the skin pulled tight over his scar. 

Sansa doesn't know if she wants to laugh or cry at that, but she thinks she knows him better now so she does neither, and looks him straight in the eyes when she answers. "My lord is too kind" _a lady's manner is her armour_

He laughs at that, but it sounds hollow even to her ears. "I do not think that I am." He takes a swing of his wine and looks at her searchingly. 

"I think you know that the Queen does not care much for you or your family." he says quietly. 

She nods, but says "I am a Lannister my Lord." while her insides is screaming that she is a wolf, and that the North remembers.

"Ah, yes," Tyrion nods, "but she does not care much for Lannisters either." 

She knows this of course. The Dragon Queen had Cersei killed, and her children is kept where she can keep an eye on them. Only the Kingslayer is at large and she does not know what will become of him.

"I spoke up for you." he continues, "because you are my wife. And she wasn't that hard to persuade. She knows not to blame a girl that does what her family tells her in times of war." 

Sansa believes him, because every girl from a noble family knows what that is like. She has heard that the Queen married young to one of the savage horse people she brought with her across the Narrow Sea. But she can also see the fire in her eyes and she knows she will get no pity from the Queen, only disdain for not breaking free. But she will take that, it is preferable to the Queen knowing the she _has_ already broken free; she is not the same girl anymore. 

"Thank you, my lord." She says, head bowed. 

He smiles the same sardonic smile he used to have, like he sees right through her, but she doesn't drop her mask. 

"Do not thank me yet, for I would like you to act as my wife again." 

She looks at him, but wills her face not to give her panic away.

"It is a way to ensure your safety." he looks at her intently. "There is a second bedroom connected to this room that can be yours. I will not press my advances, and we can continue as we did before." 

Relief floods through her at the knowledge that he does not mean them to be husband and wife in any real sense. Unbidden thoughts of Littlefinger's hands on her and his breath ghosting over her face comes, but she dismisses them with the ease of habit. This is better than she hoped for, and she knows this is an offer she can't afford to decline.

"Thank you, my Lord." she says again. He drinks more wine, and he doesn't look at her any more. Instead his eyes are dark as they look past her. She doesn't know what he thinks, but she imagines she can see the same sorrow for things lost that often is in her own eyes. 

"I'd better go and arrange for my possessions to be moved, my Lord." she rises and he makes a dismissive gesture with his hand. She's almost to the door before she turns around, a question on her lips she hadn't intended to ask, but that she needs to know the answer to. 

"Why are you doing this?"

He shrugs. "Would you believe me if I said it was for respect of our wedding vows?" 

She just waits, hoping the real answer is right behind. He sighs and drags a hand over his face. "I think it's a misplaced attempt at capturing some of the innocence left in this world. And maybe it is a first step to redeem what my family did to yours."

She still doesn't know if she got an honest answer, but she can see that no more is forthcoming and she leaves with a small courtesy, closing the door softly behind her. 

 

 

 

She learned long ago not to place her trust in men, or in a song's promise of rescue for a fair maiden. She is a maiden no more, and Sansa Stark knows that the only one who can save her is herself.

 

 

 

 

She moves into the adjoining room and settles her few possessions in the chest by the foot of the bed. The bed is large, but she knows now that her husband will not join her there, and she's grateful for that one safe island in a sea of uncertainty. 

Life settles into a rhythm. They play chess in the evenings, and sometimes they talk. Sansa keeps her mask, but she knows it sometimes slips. And she is half afraid and half relieved by his gaze that seems to see right through her, but doesn't call her on it. Tyrion has changed since last she knew him. He drinks more, and his mood is darker. He tells her one night that he likes their games because they are so different from the other games he plays at court. She doesn't ask him why, but she thinks that part of it is that he still thinks of her as the innocent girl of thirteen. And that he feels safe with her. She feels Littlefinger's voice in her head telling her that this is something she can use, but she lets the voice die down. 

She doesn't want to use this, she wants him to have a safe haven. And that thought startle her more than anything. She can see that life has not been good to him, and even if he is in control again, she knows that this is not where he intended to end up. She suddenly wonders what his dreams where when he was a child, and if he ever got to live through some of them.

 

 

 

She can't get Petyr out, he's in her head, filling it with his voice and his lessons. Even beyond death, a death she gave him, she feels like he is somehow winning. 

She never sleeps through the night any more.

 

 

 

 

"You play a good game, Lady Sansa." he says one evening, regarding her and she knows he's not talking about the board in front of them.

"Thank you, my lord." she gives him a small smile. "I learned from the best."

"That did not help him much in the end, did it?" Tyrion gives her a small smirk and suddenly she knows that he knows. She can see it in his eyes, but before she can retreat back into herself, she decides she doesn't care. It is a crime of a past filled with crimes. Still, she keeps her mask on and moves a pawn to take one of his pieces. 

"He forgot two of his own rules my Lord." she says carefully.

"Oh?" Tyrion says and she knows she has awaken his curiosity now. She moves another piece. 

"Do not place your trust lightly, and never let anyone know what you truly desire." Sansa recites and looks up at him. (she tries not to remember her mothers name whispered above her in the darkness, or the way his red blood had looked on her white hands). 

Tyrion's eyes shines in the candlelight and she holds his gaze for a long time. "What did he do to you to make you use it against him?" he asks softly, but Sansa has shared more than enough tonight: she is not yet ready to voice this. So she moves her eyes to the board in front of them and in one swift move she has his king captured. In three more she has won. 

 

 

 

 

"I talked to the Queen and she has given my brother free entry into the city." Tyrion confides in her one night. She doesn't quite know how to respond to that. She bears no love for his brother, but she does not want to offend him. 

"So he has been found, my lord?" she decides on in the end, her ivory mask in place. 

"Yes. I do not believe she means to let him stay." He takes a sip of wine. "But at least she won't kill him at first sight." He smiles his crocked smile and she retires soon after.

 

 

 

 

The Kingslayer arrives not long after that. He rides alone into the city, the golden arm hidden beneath his cloak. Sansa is shocked at how old he seems. She somehow never thought about Jaime Lannister ageing. She knew about the loss of his arm of course, but it seems like all the fight has left him as well. She was ready to despise him, to hate him like she hated the Kingslayer of old. But she do not know if she can hate this man; with loss in his eyes and a strained set to his shoulders that does not resemble the knight she once knew.

 

 

 

 

Later that evening Sansa quietly opens the door to their sitting room and slips in. Jaime and Tyrion is sitting in front of the fire, their faces serious and their conversation low. They do not hear her and she doesn't know if she should interrupt.

"I did not kill Joffrey you know." Tyrion says. 

"No." Jaime says. "I do not think I ever truly believed you did." 

Tyrion looks at him surprised, although Sansa thinks that it is only natural not to believe a thing like that about your own brother. But then she does not know these brothers like she once knew her own. She decides to make her presence known, it is rude for a lady to eavesdrop. _Learn secrets in any way you can, trickery is only wrong when done to you_. She closes the door loudly partly to alert Tyrion and Jaime to her presence, but also to shut out Petyr (even if he never stays away for long). 

They both look up at her, and she stands up a bit straighter and takes a step forward. 

"I am sorry to disturb you, my lords." _Courtesy is a lady's armor._ "I will retire and leave you to your conversation." 

Both brothers look at her. Tyrion with something she has come to know as respect and understanding, but she can't read Jaime's eyes. His face is troubled, and as he rises and makes her a bow she pulls over herself the Sansa Stark of old. He is not a Lannister she can trust, and she does not want to show her true self yet. She looks down, makes a curtsey and leaves them.

It is only after that she thinks that maybe she should have told them who really killed Joffrey, but she keeps her secrets these days. _Secrets are a currency, keep yours close at hand_. Even when she want Petyr gone, she still does what he taught her unbidden.

She hears their low voices long into the night.

 

 

 

 

When she doesn't sleep she sits in her windowsill looking out over the castle. She tries not to think of the past, but she still does. She lets her mind wander to Winterfell and a childhood that she remember differently now. She remembers old Nan telling them stories as kids, and Sansa understands some of them better now. The old woman was telling more than just stories to amuse, they were cautionary tales, tales of the men and woman who lost everything, and the few who managed to claw themselves back. 

She wonders where Nan is now, and if she herself had lived through any of her own stories. Then she realizes that Nan is probably dead as well, buried underneath Winterfell's ruins. 

Sansa's greatest sin is that she is a survivor.

 

 

 

 

"What do you want?" Tyrion asks her one night.

"What do you mean, my lord?" her mask already in place while her thoughts swirl. It is too loaded a question, to many answers to voice and none of them something she's ready to give away.

"Do not play the game with me Sansa," he says warily. "not tonight. You know me better than that, I should think. What do you want?" 

She looks down at her hands, the trust that's been building between them the past months wants her to open up. _never reveal your deepest desires, or they might get taken away from you_ Petyr whisper seductively in her ear and she shuts her eyes. She doesn't want to be like him, she wants to be her own. She is in it for the long game, and she knows that she might have learned from the best, but Tyrion is right, that didn't help him in the end. She has to do this her own way, use him when needed, but not all the time. She needs to be Sansa Stark, not Alayne Stone. She takes a deep breath and looks at Tyrion.

"Winterfell." She says, the word hanging between them, making the air hard to breathe. "I want to go home."

He looks at her, and she can see a softening around his eyes (it is not something she would have noticed when they first were married, and she wonders now if he would have been an ally back then if she had let him. She knows now not to be influenced by something like physical appearance, there are other things far more treacherous in the human mind). 

"Thank you." he says into the silence, and they do not talk about it again. 

 

 

 

 

Not long after that the Queen has Sansa summoned to her presence. After her return Sansa has only seen her when accompanying Tyrion, and as they are standing alone on the Queen's private terrace, she misses his wry smiles as a wall of protection between her and the woman in front of her. She realizes now just how much their continued marriage has truly guarded her. 

"I mean to give you Winterfell and make you guardian of the North." the Queen says.

Sansa is still as a stone, she does not know what to say to this, it must be a game the Queen plays with her. She can not mean what she says. Danerys smiles at her, but there is no warmth behind it. 

"Take a moment to compose yourself, Lady Sansa." She turns and leans towards the railing. And Sansa takes a few deep breaths, willing herself not to feel the seeds of hope blossoming inside her. 

"Why, your Grace?" she finally asks, and moves to stand next to Danerys.

"I am having problems with the lords of the North, they do not respect me. I could burn them all, make an example out of the ones that defy me, but this land has known enough of war. Tyrion tells me that they will bend their knee to a Stark, that if I make you the warden they will be mine through you."

"There is an old saying in the North," Sansa says. "There must always be a Stark at Winterfell." She takes a break and looks out over the water, one of the Queens dragon's are flying low over it. "And my lord husband is right, they would respect a Stark. But I am not a Stark any more, I am a Lannister now and they would not respect my husband." She says it without regret, she knows it to be true, even if she has come to respect Tyrion herself.

"Tyrion tells me that it has never been a true marriage. I mean to set it aside." Danerys says, and with those simple words she opens up Sansa's future. She knows she can do it now, that if she plays this right she can win her long game.

"And what do you want from me, your Grace?" Sansa asks, she knows the Queen is not someone who gives something for free. 

"Your loyalty. A promise that neither you, your family or your bannermen will raise a hand against the Royal family. I will choose the wife of your eldest son, and he will rule as Warden of the North after you." Danery turns and looks at her. "I want peace." she says, "and I mean for you to help me keep it. In return you yourself will be left in peace and your children will grow up to be lords and ladies of the North." 

"Thank you, your Grace." Sansa murmurs, but even as she plays the meek court lady, she can feel the cold wind of the north up her spine and the weight of generations past behind her. 

The Queen's voice grows harder. "But do not misunderstand me Lady Sansa, if you do anything to displease me, or if this does not bring peace, fire will rain down on the North and none of it will be left to rule over." 

"I understand." Sansa says and she does, she knows that the woman in front of her is as unforgiving as fire, and Sansa knows that she will keep true. Because the Queen is her way home, and she will not let it get away.

 

 

 

 

The cold and windy Eyre solidified her need for survival in a way King's Landing's threats and constant fears could not. In the lion's hands she learned of the game, in the mockingbird's she learned why she wanted to play it at all. She is tired, so tired, of being afraid. And survival is now a constant in her soul, a warm iron has branded her with it and making her long even more for a life free of masters and death.

And now she only has to reach out and grasp her home, _just survive a little longer_. And she can start to remember who she was before. Who she might become again.

 

 

 

 

She is standing on the high wall where once Joffrey had taken her to see her fathers head, looking at the King's Road and thinking of home. She was leaving soon, and she had taken to stand here, to look at the road she would take. Everything for her departure was prepared, and now it was just a waiting game. Tyrion is sending some of his men with her, they have all agreed to stay and help her rebuild Winterfell. He is also providing her with barrels of precious grain, tools and well preserved food. She knows it will be a long, cold winter before Winterfell again is safe and sound. But she will use the winter to build both herself and her home stronger. 

Jame Lannister comes up next to her and leans on the wall. She tenses slightly, she has not been alone with him since his return, and she does not understand him, he switches with ease between wry japes and solemn silences, and trough it all she can feel him watching her. 

"I am to be banished." he tells her without preamble. "It seems like the new Queen does not like me much."

"I can't imagine why, my Lord." she says drily, without really meaning too. But she is tired of this place and her mask is slipping.

He laughs, sudden and in a burst, and stops just as sudden like he is surprised by the sound. 

"I asked the Queen if I could go North with you, she accepted my request as long as you didn't object." he looks at her, all laughter gone from his face. And she regards him quietly; she is surprised by his request.

"Why would you want to come with me?" she asks finally.

"I made a promise to your lady mother, and a Lannister pays his debts." 

He looks at her in a way she is not comfortable with, like a drowning man would look at the shore. And she knows that a knight's promises are like the morning mist: beautiful to look at, but gone once the sun rises. But she can't deny him his own way to freedom even if she doesn't understand it. 

They leave the next day.


	2. Chapter 2

Sansa can see the way the wars have ruined the kingdom. Everywhere they go there are traces of it, and the people they meet all have the same haunted look to them. Her heart bleeds for Westeros and the pain it has been through. It is broken, but she does not think it is beyond repair. There is hope when she sees children playing, buildings being restored and people making a new life for themselves.

War is a travesty, and when wealthy men go to war to get even wealthier, or more powerful, or for kings and queens, or for blood, both poor and rich suffers (but the poor more that the rest, because Sansa has learned that is how it goes; the high born suffer from the mistakes of high born, while the poor suffer every time anyone makes a mistake). 

Her father said that the one who says the sentence has to swing the sword, and she vows to herself never to let someone else do the heavy lifting for her. Because she might be a lady, a high born, but she knows what it is like to be a bastard and to feel the heath of unwanted glances and the frozen coldness of backs turned away. And if she makes mistakes, she wants them to be her own, not the mistakes of someone who let things get out of hand because she didn't pay attention to the world around her. If you don't swing the sword, the sentence is as easy to hand out as one of her empty courtesies. And once it gets to easy the world crumbles.

When the banners are called, the poor man suffers.

 

 

 

Jaime rides beside her, and Tyrion's men around them. They do not talk much when they ride. But when they stop and makes camp he seeks her out to talk, she thinks he means to shock her, to draw her out of her shell. Sometimes she even lets him. She is not as easily shocked as he seems to think, but she lets him try anyway.

 

 

 

 

"Have you ever been in love?"

The question surprises her, and she weights her answer before she decides to give the truth. 

"I loved Joffrey once, but it was a child's love, given away lightly and I know now it wasn't real. It was a love for something I once thought I wanted; the handsome prince and the kingdom that followed him." She smiles a sad smile and looks at him. "So no. I do not think I have ever been in love."

"Then you haven't." he said. "Because if you had loved, you would know." 

His face has hard lines and his eyes are dark. She thinks that he does know love, and how it can twist you into something you didn't think you could be. Cersei hover between them like a shadow and she thinks of Petyr again, and that the last word he spoke when the light left his eyes was her mother's name. 

And she thinks that being in love is a curse, and that she hopes she will never feel love like that.

 

 

 

 

 

Two weeks after leaving King's Landing it start to snow. They are crossing the Neck and although there is still leagues to go before they get to Winterfell, winter is in the air. Sansa stops her horse when she feels the first touch of the cold snow on her face. Tilting her head back she smiles and it feels like her heart is exploding, that something she had closed off is making itself known again. 

The other men have passed her, but Jaime is sitting right in front of her, looking incredulous. Somehow it's the way he looks at her that sets her off, and she smiles at him widely and laughs. It's a real laugh, one she thought lost, but she finds that it didn't wither when unused. And that makes her laugh more and to lift her face towards the havens again. The snow feels like home, it feels like a lost childhood and a new beginning. Finally she turns back to Jaime and find an unusual softness in his look. She smiles and moves past him, continuing on the road to Winterfell. 

She can feel his eyes on her for the rest of the day.

 

 

 

 

"Have you ever killed someone, Lady Sansa?" Jamie asks her.

She can see that it is meant as a rhetorical question, as a lead-in to more of his superior self-pity, but she suddenly wants to shock him, and to shake his opinion of her.

"Yes." She lets the word hang in the air between them, as he looks at her in shock. 

"What, you actually killed Joffrey?" he finally says.

"No, I didn't." She said coldly. She hadn't meant to say more, but when she thinks about the fact that the man in front of her _was_ Joffrey's father, she's compelled to say the rest. "It was Petyr Bealish and the Queen of Thorns. She did not find Joffrey to be the husband she had envisioned for her Margaery. I am sorry." she is not sure what made her add the last part, but it's there now.

"No, you're not." he says, voice flat.

"I am not sorry he died, but I am sorry for your loss."

"There is no need my lady, I have lost more than a son." But he rides in silence after that, and she leaves him to his thoughts, having enough of her own to contemplate. She can feel her mask slipping more than she likes, it seems that is a talent he shares with his brother. _keep your secrets close, only give them out when you can get something in return_. She finds she tells more to Jaime than she intends; giving out her carefully collected secrets like they were rocks, not jewels. 

He doesn't press her further about the day's discussion. But she can see him looking at her curiously, searching for something and she feels herself grow hot under his gaze. She wasn't going to tell him anything, glad when he left the subject alone. But when she looks over at him by the fire that night and meets his eyes, she thinks that maybe she does get something for her secrets. That this man is someone she needs now, because the North is cold and unforgiving, and she has a long road ahead of her before she reaches her final goal. So she starts talking, and when she starts she can't stop. Sometimes all you need is a confessor. 

"When Joffrey died Petyr Baelish took me with him to the Vale." she starts, she doesn't look at him, but she knows she has his full attention. She can feel it in the way he shifts beside her and at how quiet it is all of a sudden. "Cersei wanted me because of Joffrey's murder, so I dyed my hair brown and we passed me off as Petyr's bastard daughter. He married my aunt Lyssa, but she did not like me. She blamed me for Petyr not loving her, just like she had spent her whole life blaming others. She tried to kill me, so he killed her." She shudders at the memory, she can still feel her feet slipping on the ice and see her aunt's expression right before she fell. Jaime doesn't say anything, and she is grateful. She wants to tell it all now, or she is afraid she will lose her courage.

"Petyr saved me from King's Landing and in return he expected me to do his bidding, call him father and let him into my bed. He used to whisper my mother's name in the darkness." Jaime made a sudden movement beside her, and she presses on. "He opened up to me, and he gave me more than he intended; thinking me one of his court ladies, a pretty flower with no will of her own. And in one way he was right, I was Alayne Stone for a long time. I pulled on a mask for him, being what he wanted me to be. Masks are the way I stay alive. But underneath Alayne I was always Sansa, a Stark of Winterfell. And the North remembers." 

She is quiet for a heartbeat, she thinks he knows by now where this story is headed, but it has to be voiced. Petyr might think that all secrets should be kept, but she thinks that if she keeps too many she might one day break apart.

"I waited until the time was right, until the dragon was at the door and I knew that my cover would be blown either way. And then I slit his throat." she clenches her fists in her skirts as the image of him flashes before her eyes. "He taught me how to play the game, even when he thought me just a pawn. I can still sense him in the back of my head, assessing my every move and giving his instructions. His voice is always with me, and sometimes I feel as if he is winning, even though I am the one still alive." she confesses and is quiet. When he doesn't say anything, she turns to look at Jaime. His face is in the shadows and she can't read his expression. 

She smiles slightly, but it does not reach her eyes. "He taught me that secrets were to be kept, only to be given out when there was something to gain in return."

"And what do you hope to gain from me, my lady?" He says, his voice deep like gravel, pressing against her bones.

"I do not know." Sansa answers, her voice solemn, her eyes still where she knows his eyes to be.

He is silent for a long time, but then he leans forward and she can see the Lannister smirk in place. "Then I think that your story should be repaid by a story. I have killed more people than you have my lady, and I will not bore you with all of them. But I will tell about the only murder I do not regret. I stabbed the Mad King Aerys in the back, and I would do it again if I had the chance." 

Sansa stiffened, she had heard this story before but never from the Kingslayer himself. 

"They say that your duty is to protect the king and the king alone. But when he needed protecting from himself no one stepped up. They make you swear and swear, there are so many rules, but they do not say what to do when you swear conflicting oaths. As a member of the King's Guard I was supposed to protect the king, but as a knight I was supposed to protect the people. In those final days he had wildfire placed all over the city, the maddness was in him and he intended to burn everyone. So I killed him."

He is quiet and Sansa does not blame him, she does not know what to think of this new knowledge. She thinks that even before she meet him she has build an image of him that was mostly based on half-truths and stories. She does not know what to do with this new Jaime, the Jamie she thinks she knows better after their weeks on the road. 

"Why didn't you say anything?" she says in the end, when she can't take the silence any more. "Why didn't you explain yourself?"

He laughed then, but the laugh was without joy. "It was your father who arrived first and he did not want to listen to my excuses. Never mind what he would have done himself if the King was still alive. He always believed in honour and duty before everything, and he had already made his mind up about me. And after that I didn't bother. What did I care what people thought of me?" 

She thinks he is lying, he does care what people think, but she doesn't call him on it. They have both been honest enough for one night. 

 

 

 

The closer they get to Winterfell, the more Sansa feels it's pull. There is a strange sadness lodged in her breast and she knows it has been there for years. But now. Now that she is so close it feels like it is expanding, like it is almost breaking. She is afraid that it will be taken away from her, now that she finally is close to home.

She is afraid to hope.

 

 

 

They stop at an inn for the night. The boy serving them blushes scarlet when she smiles at him, and hurries away. Jaime smiles his mocking smile at her.

"Your beauty is turning heads wherever you go my lady." She can tell he's drunk and just hoping for a reaction, and she turns away.

"Someone should put a smile on your face. I'm not sure that lad has a good fucking in him, but I am sure you could get some kisses out of him if you so desired."

"I've only kissed four people in my life, none of them led to smiles and I do not know if I intend to add a fifth." she said coldly. She could tell that he was being crude just to bait her, and she is angry at herself for giving in.

"You might have to, to hold the North." is his swift response.

She knows in her heart that he is right. She will need a husband and heirs for the bannermen to trust her. They were childish words of a girl who didn't know her duty. She thought she was past impatient thoughts like that. He doesn't say any more either, the bravado leaving him just as sudden as it came. She is used to his mood swings by now, and she has her own thoughts to keep her company.

It is only later when she is done eating and he is on his third tankard of ale that he speaks again. "So who are the lucky men that got a kiss from the Lady Sansa?"

She doesn't answer, just feels her mouth fill with ash with the thought that only one of them got it freely, and _that_ is the one she most want to take back.

When she doesn't answer he continues on: "Because I have been thinking about it, and I can only name two: My dear brother and that bastard Petyr. And if I would dare to hazard a guess on the third it would be Joffrey. So who is the forth my lady?" 

She does not really see a reason to hide it from him, but it is still a secret she has kept with her for a long time. A moment shared between a hound and a bird, something sacred to her now, although she can't quite say why. 

"Sandor Clegane" she says softly, anticipating his mockery and getting none of it. He doesn't say anything at all, just looks at her, his eyes filled with something she does not quite understand. He opens his mouth to say something, but she stops him.

"It is a long story, and not one I am eager to share. At least not tonight." she gets up, "I will retire now. Goodnight ser." And with that she leaves him, tired to the core, longing for the bed upstairs after a long day's ride.

 

 

Three days later they can see Winterfell in the distance and Sansa feels the longing sadness in her chest breathing out and expanding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know that Sansa and Sandor didn't really kiss, but since Sansa later remembered a kiss I've let her keep it. 
> 
> Thanks everyone who read and left kudos on the last chapter <3


	3. Chapter 3

Winterfell is in ruins. To many lords has passed through it, each leaving it worse than they found it. She stops just inside the gates, the outer walls being mostly intact on this side. It is not the home she left behind, but it is not a stranger to her either. The main building stands there as it always did, the outer sheds and buildings mostly gone, making it look bigger than it used to be. The stone walls remain, but most things are burned and ashen.

She moves herself and the men into the most habitable rooms, and she sends out over half of the ravens she brought with her. They go to King's Landing to signal their safe arrival, to the Wall and to her bannermen to say that a Stark once again inhabit the walls of Winterfell. And she sends four out to the corners of her land, hoping that they will reach the smallfolk who used to live here. She needs them all if she is going to survive this.

They slowly start to build up what was lost, finding what is whole and separating it from the rubble. She finds the godswood miraculously intact. Burned around the edges, but the weirwood with is black pool remains. She finds secret moments there, memories from long ago and a new love for the old Gods that she thought she had lost. 

Sometimes she thinks she hears her brothers and sisters around her, but when she turns they are always gone.

 

 

 

 

With Winterfell comes the hope of a life, not just survival. But her game is still a long one, and she can not afford to feel safe yet.

 

 

 

 

 

The first one to return is Myella, the old cook. She comes in the main gates with a small group of people behind her and looks at Sansa with the old blend of affection and sternness. 

Sansa walks over and greets them like a lady, but she lets her mask fall a little; knows that these people will appreciate her true self more than the high born lady. She steps up to Myella, and is almost startled to realize that she is taller than her now, and she hugs her like she hadn't done since she was a child. And enveloped in Myella's embrace she feels warmer than she has felt in years. Closing her eyes she can almost feel the flour on her cheeks, the dough of the lemon cakes she loved beneath her hands, Arya's shoulders knocking into her knees whilst playing under the table and Myella's warm voice across the kitchen giving commands and telling her just how to get it right. She is seven years old, and it would be one of the last times she spent there before deciding that a lady shouldn't spend time in the kitchen. 

She pulls back, almost embarrassed by the memory and Myella looks at her searchingly. Sansa can feel tears in her eyes, and to cover it up she starts talking. 

"Your kitchen is still here," she says walking towards the main building. "But I am afraid that we don't have much to fill it with." 

"We will just have to make due, my lady." Myella says and presses Sansa's hand as she walks past her.

And it is a good day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She has breakfast in the main hall. She goes her rounds and talk to her people. She draws out plans, not battle plans any more, but survival plans. The winter is a hard one and they need to get through it. She does her needlework and she runs her household. 

And Jaime Lannister is always _there_ ; sitting across the table at breakfast discussing farmers, buildings and food supplies. Always within sight and just out of reach. 

Behind closed eyelids she is haunted by memories and they keep her up late and wake her early. Jaime is not sleeping either. She can see it in the lines around his eyes and the weariness in his shoulders. She knows that he must see the same in her. She does not know if his memories haunt him, but she would think so. She sees, sometimes, in his look a weary hopelessness that match her own. She makes sure hers is not known; she has her Winterfell, but only as long as she is strong enough to keep it. So she plays the invulnerable Stark so well that most days she believes it herself. 

Some days she misses Alayne Stone. She was all soft smiles and no rough edges, and Sansa Stark has rough edges aplenty. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Jamie thinks that it's astonishing how she takes so easily to everything; the smallfolk loves her, she bends every bannerman to her will and every challenge that surfaces is handled with ease and grace. But he also thinks that it is wrong of him to assume that it is easy, even when she makes it seem that way. When he first returned King's Landing, he had seen her as scared, polite and wilfully ignorant. Now he rather thought it all an act, something put on because she thought him like his sister; someone she could fool by playing the stupid little girl. Sansa has long since proved to be more than he ever thought she was. 

He has started to collect items of what he deems as _the real Sansa_ : the way her fingers will worry with her skirts when she's nervous, the darkness in her eyes when she thinks no one is looking, the small smile she reserves for Myella, the way the curve of her neck looks bent in prayer in the Godswood, the way her eyes will light up in anger or shock when he pushes her that bit too far and the way she will occasionally touch his arm lightly just where the golden hand begins.

But if there is one thing he has learned about Lady Sansa in the past months, it is this: She is a careful construction.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sansa has used the rules from her childhood to navigate her survival, but some days, in the privacy of her own chamber she rages against the teachers of her youth. How could they tell her the stories of happily ever after and the careful set of rules, restrictions and boundaries that came with them, when they had all known the horrible truth? That the rules they were teaching her was just like a broken shield; no true defence at all. They used to say that she was a Summer Child, but none of them had explained what it meant. No one had spoken of the horrors of war, only of glory. No one had mentioned the cruel downside to love, just the wonderful ever after. No one had told the truth of life. She knows the truth now, and it is a double-edged sword; it hurts to know, but it is infinitely preferable to living a lie.

Growing up is a cruel thing, maturity will drop into your life like a hawk, snatching away your childhood and leaving only broken dreams. She wants to build something from the shards, but she does not know if she can manage it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I miss her." 

Jaime is sitting on the floor in front of her fire, they haven't said a word to each other all night and she jumps a bit at the sound of his voice. 

"I miss her. I have never loved another woman than Cersei," he continues. "It was always the two of us together, the two of us against the world. I've been more faithful to her that most men are to their loves, I sacrificed everything for her, I took the White Cloak for her and let it corrupt me. And it was all for love." 

His voice is haltering and she think that he might say more, but he is silent. She thinks about all the things she could say: that Cersei thought of love as a poison, that she wasn't as faithful as he was and that she had seen a woman's beauty as a weapon. But she doesn't, she doesn't want to be that cruel. And in the end he says it for her.

"I know she didn't love me like I loved her," he says "her marriage to Robert ruined a lot of things, herself and our love included. It just took me far to long to see that, in my mind she was the same person I had always known. My other half. And even if I know I don't love her like that any more, I still miss her. I'm all alone now." he looks at her and she can see the tears in his eyes. "I don't know how to be me without her." 

He bows his head again and she can feel more than hear his grief taking him over. She sinks down on the floor beside him and wraps her arms around him. He leans into her and she can feel his tears wetting her sleeve. 

"I don't know who I am without her," he says between sobs, "I am all alone." 

And she cries with him, she cries for the hopes and dreams of the man he had been, she cries for the people she's lost, and she cries for the hollow feeling inside her that tells her that they are the same. But most of all she cries for Jaime and for the love that had poisoned his life until he was a shell of the man he could have been.

They are both lost, and she continues to rock him like a child until his tears subsides. 

(Their greatest sin is that they are survivors)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She thinks she might like to kiss Jamie sometimes. But she still feels the shadow of Cersei, hovering between them and she will not be a replacement for someone else ever again. She is her own person, and loving someone that loves someone else is not something she will allow herself to do. 

But they still talk, they share and they grow and maybe, mayby that is enough.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spring comes. It is not the spring of her youth, just a tentative warming. But the ground defrosts, and she distributes the grain Tyrion sent with her to her new farmhands. In return for a tax on the food they will produce, everyone who wants a plot of their own gets one. She sits in the great hall, several carefully drawn maps in front of her and divides the land of Winterfell, and suddenly she misses her father. When she thinks of her family she usually picture her mother, or her brothers and sister from childhood games. Father had always belonged to Arya and the boys, never to her, but now she wish he was here, with his steady, grey eyes and quiet resolve. He had been a good lord to Winterfell and she only hopes that she will make him proud. Proud enough to forget that her own stupidity killed him.

The day after the spring comes a young man stands in the courtyard. He has broad shoulders, dark hair and eyes. He is carrying a pack and a helmet fashioned like a bull. He gives her a bow, says his name is Gendry and that he is a smith. His voice marks him as a southerner and she wonders what he is doing so far north. But it is not her place to question the choices that led him here, and they do need a smith. So she welcomes him to her hall, and lets him stay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sansa can feel Gendry's eyes on her sometimes. If she catches him at it he doesn't look away, he just gazes at her, seeming to look for something in her, but she doesn't know what. He unsettles her, something familiar in him, in all his strangeness. 

She visits the smith one day, some instructions to be handled out, but when she is done she doesn't quite want to leave. 

"What are you doing here?" she finally asks.

"I am waiting." He looks at her with steady eyes and she can see the truth behind them.

"Me to." she says softly before she turns and walks over the courtyard. She does not know why she said it, but she realizes that it was the truth. She is waiting, holding her breath, listening for something to happen. She finds her way to the top of the outer wall, and lean against it looking out over _her_ land. Things have either been to easy or to hard, something undefinable is holding her back from breathing out and settling in. She thinks she might have found it now; she is waiting for her siblings, she is holding her breath in expectation, she is listening for a storm. She can't help but feel that some new trouble is coming her way, life has not been easy for years, and she needs to survive it all. She stays up there for a long time.

It hits her later that night, sitting at the head of the table in her own hall, that maybe, just maybe, it is not about surviving any more; it is about living. It is about using the time she has left on what she wants to do. She is tired of waiting, she is tired of being afraid, and she is tired of constantly standing in someone else's shadow.

She looks out over the hall in front of her, on the people that depend on her, and the people she has come to love. And she looks at Jamie beside her, and it is good, it is great even, this might not be a road she has travelled before, but she will gladly go down it now.

At last, after a long, _long_ wait she lets out the air she has been holding in, and finally Sansa Stark is ready to begin her own life of her own choosing. 

She has played the game, a long game, and she has won.

 

 

 


End file.
